MAYOR SEEKS TO DISMANTLE SCHOOL DENTAL PROGRAM

Just weeks after vetoing a state grant intended to help the city fight AIDS, Mayor Joseph J. Marinan once again is poised to block the provision of social services through the city health department.

Since his election in November, Marinan has pledged to reduce the scope of the city's social services, believing they serve as magnets for the needy.

But with the city's 25-year-old school dental program in the mayor's sights, Health Director Leonard McCain is concerned that, instead, children will be placed at risk.

The city's K-5 dental service was one of only three programs to go unfunded after union concessions to supplement the city's 1994-95 budget earlier this month. All three programs were taken from the health department.

"This is an important preventative program," McCain said of the dental program, which provided checkup screenings for each of the city's K-5 pupils. "It lets us catch problems before they become costly."

Seeking to get the dental program back off the ground, McCain recently approached City Manager Roger Kemp and Louis Gonzalez, executive director of Meri-Care Health Service Inc., to see whether a solution could be found.

As the city's newly privatized health care provider, Meri-Care already was prepared to sign a $16,500 lease with the city for office space in the Stoddard Building at 165 Miller St. But given McCain's depiction of the city's needs, Gonzalez instead offered to have Meri- Care provide the city's K-5 students with free dental screenings, in exchange for a $1-a-year lease for the office space.

The proposed lease also stipulates that Meri-Care would be required to supply an additional $100,000 for renovations of the Stoddard Building.

"The dental program used to cost the city $155,000 to operate," Kemp said. "But this would essentially allow the council to get it up and running again for free. It's only a matter of whether or not it wants to."

Although the city has provided Meri-Care with free office space in years past, Marinan said Monday that things are not quite so simple, and that he will not support the proposed lease.

"There is no way that they are going to trade that program for free space," Marinan said. "We are going to be expecting a real payment."